Reward and Seed: Avram's Two Claims

39After Hashem's promise, “I am a shield for you; your reward is very great,” Avram answers, “What will You give me, when I go childless …?” Then the verse begins again: “And Avram said, ‘Behold, to me You have given no seed.’” At first glance this second “And Avram said” is superfluous, since Avram is still speaking; it makes his words look like a separate statement.

40It seems that the answer lies here. There is no reward for a mitzvah in this world.¹ So when some reward comes to a person for a mitzvah he has done, for example when Hashem gives him money for it, that is not the main reward. Hashem gave him this money only so that he would do another mitzvah. That is the meaning of “The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah”:² it is given so that he will do yet another mitzvah. And when Hashem gives a person children for some mitzvah, that too is so that he will do another mitzvah, raising them to Torah and to the service of Hashem, blessed be He.

41aAvraham [Avinu] always cleaved to the Creator, blessed be He, and bound himself to Him. As a man carries a shield before his face, held close against him, so he kept Hashem fastened upon himself always. That is “I am a shield for you”: because you made Me a shield for yourself, drawing Me to you and holding Me close, therefore “your reward is very great.”

41b“And Avram said, ‘My Lord, God, what will You give me?’”: what reward can I have in this world? Surely there is no reward for a mitzvah in this world; there is only the reward we saw, “The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah,” such as children to raise to Torah. And what is my reward? “I go childless”: I have no son. You might say that my reward is “the ben meshek of my house,” its steward, Eliezer: meshek (משק) speaks of mashkeh (משקה), giving to drink, for he gives others to drink of his Torah, and so he counts for me as a son, in the spirit of the saying “Whoever teaches his fellow's son Torah, it is as though he had begotten him.”³ That is not so, for “he is Dammesek Eliezer”:⁴ Dammesek (דמשק) is one who draws and gives to drink, and if Eliezer is a tzaddik who draws and gives others to drink of my Torah, that is not on my account. It comes from his name, for sometimes the name is a cause:⁵ to be called by the name of a worthy and upright man causes a person to be a tzaddik. If a man named Avraham, for example, wants to serve Hashem, blessed be He, that name causes him and helps him to be a tzaddik. That was Avram's first claim.

42He came with a second claim as well, which is why the verse begins again: “And Avram said, ‘Behold, to me You have given no seed.’” For the Gemara says, “Whoever does not leave a son to inherit him, the Holy One, blessed be He, is filled with wrath against him.”⁶ Avram said: Even the wealth You gave me is not given for good, as a reward, since I have no seed “and a member of my household inherits me,” and Hashem is filled with wrath against one who leaves no son.

43“And behold, the word of Hashem came to him: ‘This one shall not inherit you …’ And He took him outside … ‘and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said, ‘So shall your seed be.’”⁷ At first glance He should have said it briefly: as you cannot count the stars, so shall your seed be. But an awakening from below brings the awakening from above, and a person must begin with something somewhat physical, in the spirit of the saying “teshuvah, tefillah, tzedakah.”⁸ [Teshuvah] is something somewhat physical: a person afflicts himself with fasting. After it comes tefillah, prayer, which is deveikus, cleaving to Hashem, and after that tzedakah, charity. That is what Hashem told him: “Count the stars.” The beginning must be from below, through counting the stars. But Avraham wanted to rise at once to a great level, above the stars. This is “He believed in Hashem”: vehe'emin (והאמין) shares its root with omen (אומן) in “he was bringing up Hadassah,”⁹ for he attached himself and drew himself up at once to a great level, to Hashem. “And He reckoned it to him as tzedakah”: vayachsheveha (ויחשבה), “He reckoned it,” is from the root of machshavah (מחשבה), thought: Hashem did his will at once and raised him to the upper world, the world of thought, and there it is tzedakah. Understand this.